


One In A Million

by QueenOfNewOrleans22



Category: Guns N' Roses
Genre: Drabble Sequence, First Kiss, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:54:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28556460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfNewOrleans22/pseuds/QueenOfNewOrleans22
Summary: Short drabbles from when Duff and Slash first meet, to when they first kiss.
Relationships: Duff McKagan/Slash
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	One In A Million

**Author's Note:**

> I don't wanna be a burden. I don't wanna keep being selfish.

**1.**

"And this is Saul Hudson, but his nickname is Slash." Izzy lit another cigarette and stuck it inside of his mouth while motioning vaguely towards the young man in the doorway. "He's gonna be our guitarist." Izzy shook his hair out of his eyes. "So play nice." 

Duff smiled and stuck his hand out, suddenly aware of his fast his heart was beginning to beat. "Hi." He said. "I'm Duff McKagan." In a way, Duff supposed that his body was reacting in such a way because he was meeting someone new and that always gave him anxiety, but he knew that it was a lie. 

"Hey." Slash had a pretty smile behind his mane of curly hair, and, far from pounding, Duff felt like his heart was melting. "Izzy told me a lot about you." 

"No, I didn't." Izzy said, his lips twisting into his faintly cryptic smirk before walking away. "Good try, though." 

And that should've been incentive enough that Duff had already been pulled in too deep to swim away, but, at that moment, all he knew was that Slash had a great laugh, too. 

**2.**

"You were great up there!" Slash said, appearing by Duff's elbow without so much as a single warning to keep Duff from jumping out of his skin. "Like, you had so much of a stage presence. It was great, _you_ were great." 

Duff couldn't help but feel his face warm up at the compliment. "Well, you know, I was just feeling it out, getting used to the crowd." He shrugged, trying to play it off like it was nothing when all he wanted to do was grin like a dope and soak up the compliments like he was fish and they were water. 

"I wanna be like that someday." Slash said in a quieter voice, tuning back to where he was putting new strings on his guitar. He was practiced, skilled, as he worked the strings. "Charismatic. Good with people." 

"Well." Duff didn't know how to tell Slash that he was great with people, just in a different way. Duff was great with short-term friendships, and Slash was better at keeping them. "I'll just have to teach you, huh?" 

**3.**

There wasn't anyway to explain Duff's feelings other than pure admiration and complete infatuation. He remembered being forced to sit while his mother and her friends were reading their romance novels to each other, and the way that the female protagonist was described as feeling was the exact same way that Duff felt, complete with the butterflies. 

Or maybe he was just drunk - that was a good explanation. 

Slash's body was warm, and he seemed to fit perfectly underneath Duff's arm as they stumbled back to their temporary apartment, legs twisting and laughter bubbling from their throats as another nonsense memory came back to the present. Slash grinned, stumbling as Duff tripped and exerted his weight onto the other man to keep from falling. 

"You're cute." Duff said, wrapping his arm around Slash's shoulders and pulling him closer, until they were practically molded into one. "Like, really cute." 

Scrunching his face up, Slash looked up at him, tilting his head. "Cute?" He repeated. "You think I'm cute?" He said. 

"Yeah." Duff nodded. "I think you're really cute." He squeezed Slash's shoulders and then let go, walking ahead. "Look up at the sky! Look at the stars!" He pointed up toward them. 

Slash paused in the middle of the sidewalk, his heart hammering against his ribcage. He couldn't believe the words - he was far more sober than Duff was, and he knew the weight of them. He stared at the bassist, torn between his own feelings and his inner terror at the idea. 

"Yeah." Slash whispered. "They're pretty." 

**4.**

Duff felt like he's about to pass out, and as he jumped over one of the chairs backstage and nearly tripped over some blonde who was sitting there and reading a magazine (One of the girls? Steven? It was hard to tell), that possibility became more of a reality. 

By the time Duff managed to get to the other side of the backstage, Axl was complaining about something again but Duff couldn't bring himself to care because there was Slash, and he was steadily making his way through a bottle of whiskey while slowly plucking the strings on his new guitar. 

"Slash!" Duff grabbed his friend, fingers tight on his arms, pulling Slash up and into a tight hug. Time seemed to pass slowly as Duff cradled the younger man in his arms, feeling Slash's confusion as it if were his own. 

"Hey, man, what's wrong?" Slash's words were slurred and quiet, but they were audible enough that Duff could still feel himself laugh. 

Duff didn't know why nobody had told him that _Slash's heart had stopped, that he'd died, that if things had gone even worse, then he would be a corpse on a gurney,_ but he didn't want to do anything but rejoice that Slash was still breathing, and that it wasn't too late. "Nothing." Duff mumbled, but he still didn't let go. 

**5.**

"I can't believe that this is gonna be our first concern without everybody else, without Stevie or Izzy or Axl." Slash sighed. "This is gonna be weird as all hell." 

Duff nodded. "Our first concert where everybody is sober, too." He paused, and then smiled. He told himself to be brave, to take a deep breath, to do it before it was too late. 

Shifting around and leaning foward, Duff tried to tell himself that rejection was possible but that, after so many years, that he had to just do it before the feelings drove him inside. And then Slash turned, grabbed Duff by the back of his neck, and pulled him into a searing, long-awaited kiss that was so much better than Duff could've ever expected. 

"So," Slash said when they finally pulled away, lungs burning for air and lips burning for more. "Pizza later?" 

Feeling like he'd just gotten a high from that kiss alone, Duff smiled. "Sure, now come back so I can kiss you again." 


End file.
